Street Food

By Ceridwen Buckmaster

Street Food: Urban foraging and world food

Street Food: Urban foraging and world food shines a spotlight on wild food as ‘the new street food’ in a collection ofrecipes inspired by the wild plants that grow in urban areas, as well as by the people and the diverse food traditions present in the city. ‘StreetFood refers to both the wild food found on the urban streets, and also to the urban culture of eating food on the go’ says author Ceridwen Buckmaster.

In the book, you will learn how to forage safely in urban areas, and find over 60 world food recipes made with wild food, including Vietnamese rice wraps with wild herbs, Polish pierogi with nettle and thistle shoots, South Asian chestnut and fig biryani, Caribbean blackberrysmoothies, and East African yarrow honey wine.

Since 2008, Ceridwen has led walks in London’s green spaces to learn about edible wild plants and is passionate about bringing communities together through food. She says, “We've gone walking together in parks and green spaces finding plants that are edible and safe to pick; and we’ve experimented with each other’s cooking traditions. In the city, you can travel round the world,just by connecting to your neighbour.”

Street Food: Urban Foraging and World food by Ceridwen Buckmaster, with photography by Nemo Roberts and design by DorotheaBohlius

The book is available on a sliding scale of what you can afford £10 - £15 (plus £2.50 postage and packing if I need to send it to you ). Please contact me for payment details.

ceribuckmaster(at)gmail.com or 07963446605

This book came after many years of community building, creative, environmental workshops (in the form of a walk and a feast) in the disadvantagedColdharbour ward of Brixton. There is such a need in our community for support for people to reach their full potential, to increase skills, self esteem and social and environmental awareness to build stronger community networks for a more resilient, happier, connected community.

For us, Invisible food refers to everything that sustains us that isn’t ordinarily visible or easy to spot. The ‘food’ has a literal and practical interpretation; the ‘food’ is the wild foods such as nettle, elderflower, chickweed, dandelion that, once we’ve learnt how to identify, we can harvest and learn how to use. There is also a deeper, more soulful and humanistic interpretation, as that which sustains us emotionally and spiritually, such as friendship, a strong community, a connection with the earth, and a belief in social justice. It is this combination of elements that Invisible Food tried to achieve.